A season dominated by Frankel reaches a poignant finale in what is expected to prove his final appearance at Ascot on Saturday. But even he will do well to match the emphasis with which its outstanding jockey sealed his status yesterday.

A winner-finding system is always welcome and the past six weeks have produced one that has proved very nearly infallible. Of the past five fillies-only Group One races in the European calendar, John Gosden has taken four. The sequence was started by Fallen For You in the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot, followed by Izzi Top (Pretty Polly Stakes, Curragh), Great Heavens (Irish Oaks, Curragh) and completed yesterday by Elusive Kate in the Prix Rothschild at Deauville. So, presumably, look out for their stablemate The Fugue in the Nassau Stakes at Goodwood on Saturday.

Yet again the strength in depth of the Classic generation at Ballydoyle is inviting invidious comparisons with the Turf's other superpowers. At Godolphin, in particular, a recent mood of renewal was abruptly suspended after both the first two Classics were won by their great rivals. Godolphin failed even to muster a runner in the 2,000 Guineas, while its two fancied fillies in the 1,000 Guineas both finished tailed off. The stakes will be uncomfortably high, then, when the unbeaten Mandaean measures his Investec Derby prospects in the Betfred Dante Stakes at York tomorrow. And there is commensurate significance, surely, in the fact that the imported colt will be ridden by another new recruit from France.

After such a miserable experience at Aintree, it will come as a profound relief for the Turf community to turn its gaze today upon a featureless Suffolk plain. Not that the Rowley Mile is entirely flat. In fact, it is precisely the opportunity to acquaint potential Classic candidates with the Dip – even as a race enters its decisive phase – that gives the Craven meeting its purpose. That is most obviously true of those whose rehearsals qualify them to return in barely a fortnight, for the Guineas, but will also apply to some whose target is instead the Investec Derby over the rollercoaster at Epsom.

In the event, it was not Chantal Sutherland who would make the most insistent stand on behalf of the rights of the female. Entering the tunnel between the saddling ring and paddock, owners and trainers escorting runners in the world's richest race suddenly found themselves obliged to stand and wait on the clarion instructions of Sheikh Mohammed's four-year-old daughter, Al Jalila. Her mortified mother, Princess Haya, hastened back to remonstrate; but the little sheikha had achieved her purpose and, to general amusement, was able to hurtle gaily down the vacated chute beneath the grandstand. It would prove only the prelude to a race of similarly unfettered celebration.

Cheltenham? What do you mean, Cheltenham? Well, yes, perhaps it will help pass the time. But the real anticipation, in some quarters, is for the forthcoming Flat season – and not just because of Frankel.

Two fairly momentous new chapters open on the Turf today. On the home front, an amended penalty structure is introduced ahead of the latest, dizzying revision to the whip rules. In Dubai, meanwhile, Silvestre De Sousa rides for Godolphin for the first time since accepting a post that accelerates his giddy rise through the ranks.